I’m genuinely interested in what the strategy here is. “Events” consist of releasing a silly charm or insignia that you will never pay attention to, instead of a meaningful cosmetic. That is supposed to then bring back players to play a few rounds of the game to then see the pop up about actual cosmetics (premium) in the hopes that we spend money. I don’t approve of the scummy mobile game tactics, but I get it. That’s what a business does.
What I don’t get is if player retention to buy cosmetics is the goal, then what purpose does removing content have, in a game so starved for new content? Why are new modifiers like mobian, locked to havoc, or this new radio gunner enemy and the ogryn spam modifier removed from the game after 2 weeks to never return later? Why not add that stuff permanently to the mission board, you know, like any other normal sane developer???
I don’t know what this is all about, really. Is the company going bankrupt, slowly dying? Or are the developers too busy working on Vermintide 3 and Darktide 2, and Darktide is already on life support?
If that were the case then they are acting silly, because they could be making much more bank with a properly built live service game where this content release strategy would actually work. Right now to me, it seems that they only keep losing interest, and players.
That’s the part that has boggled my mind since the initial release had such issues that even tim Buckley was mocking them.
Okay you’re making money, but why not make more money? A lot of the choices that were hamstringing them were ones that could be fixed by moving a checkbox from false to true. Crafting for example being hamstrung by RNG, when that could have been alleviated by letting us choose perks and talents, not just 1/2 of them. It was universally hated and they got a lot of positive feedback when the locks got broken. The game went from being mixed to positive on steam.
Which sells more games right??? Which is the goal? Confusing times.
it was a good launch on hype, then they quickly threw off a ton of players gaslighting and not-exactly-lying. remember the ocean of difference between the arrangement of words changing and them not being true. we’ve been literal skeletal crew since those days but whatever its a huge success and the boys are riding on 24" chrome according to badwin.
Possibly! I personally think the Tide games are pretty niche, and they bounce off most people pretty quick (based on my friend group at least). And I wonder how much larger the audience would be if there was just more stuff. It’s not like events are all we’re getting.
Beyond that, there’s a real cost to doing more. FS has proven over the last decade that they work at the pace they work at. If anything, I think their output in DT is higher than ever. And I don’t see them working their employees to the bone for some more money.
The alternative then is to hire, and that’s a risk. The games industry sees massive layoffs all the time. I don’t think it’d be worth it personally.
I know they work at their pace, but I’ve played V1 and V2 and I’ve never seen them REMOVING content on purpose, just to make it time limited (except the anniversary map I guess). This silly thing they are doing does the opposite of player retention honestly…
I think that probably all ties back to the server-based architecture, myself. I think that’s why we can’t choose missions and modifiers. And why there is a limited number of missions on the board at any given time. If all of the modifiers were always in the mix, I think (now, but more so in the future) it’d be a net negative for players. I’m sure skipping over Cranial Corruption myself…sure it’s a change of pace, but not a great one imo.
Plenty of folks think this is all the wrong choice, but I’m happy they went with servers. It’s been better for the modding scene imo (no EAC, wider adoption of mods), and I feel it’s a better experience vs. playing on someone else’s busted machine (based on my VT2 experiences).
Yeah every new modifier should go into the permanent modifier tombola.
Can’t think of a single reason they don’t do this. It’s enough to make your hair fall out.
Instead we get left with the absolute worst modifiers on constant rotation whilst all that cool stuff sees the light of day for 2 weeks then sent off to room 101 “because reasons”.
Unfortunate reality right here. People ask how Fatshark gets away with this stuff, but one just needs to look at all the paypigs and whales ingame who have every single new cool cosmetic set. They’re just fine with what they got.
Don’t think they really have that much financial incentive to handle the game more properly. There is that whole thing about how a single horse mount in WoW made vastly more money than the entire SC2 expansion.
That said I do fully agree tho the event content being removed again is just vile business strategy. If someone isn’t logging in every time there’s any micro content drop he’s just never going to see any of the new stuff. FOMO trash, intentionally done to complement the rotation in the store.
I’m 99% sure the game got released two years early, whatever original plan was had never made it to fruition, got a vacant-suit put in charge of things giving us stuff like Gacha gear and Havoc ladders, and threw whatever plan was there out the window as FS shifted resources to the next projext. Development feels like it’s chasing short term goals with short term development pipelines, likely for internal performance benchmarks, without any feeling of a coherent overall vision for Darktide as a product.
I don’t see this. Havoc is made to satisfy a real need for harder content, and it’s built around ongoing content releases (seasons). Mortis offers a totally different gameplay experience and it’s got a lore system built into it that is clearly meant to be expanded. And Unlocked & Loaded surely wasn’t anything about short term goals.
The game has 5 base difficulty modes. We then have Auric, and Maelstrom on top of that as “Harder than Hard” modes. Layering on another “Harder than Hard” mode on top of that really feels like trying to hit a mandated dev goal to release something rather than genuinely considering the place and purpose (and possibly adjusting the existing Auric/Maelstrom setup), and uses pretty much entirely existing assets with the bulk of development around the largely unnecessary ladder and party finder.
Mortis likewise feels much the same way, it’s a trivially developed wave mode using entirely existing assets. Fun, but feels like a tacked on afterthought, not something cohesively developed as part of the original vision.
I don’t agree. The original difficulties weren’t replaced by Auric, just how Auric wasn’t replaced by Havoc. They all have a different feel.
And the opinion that the ladder and party Finder are unnecessary doesn’t seem to support the idea that FS isn’t putting any effort into these additions. Neither does making changes to the systems based on player feedback.
This simply isn’t true. The lore bits and Sefoni audio, the “lobby” area, the perks, the 2 levels, the hold objective, and the code behind it all. All of these things had to be planned, built out and tested, even if (some? all?) bits of each level already existed.
Clearly very different from actual new assets and content though. Even over half the perks are just reused talents with slightly different mechanics if even that. Many of them are 1:1 copypastes
How many “harder than hard” modes does the game need? The only reason it’s not replacing Auric is because it’s stuck behind the party finder and a Ladder you need to get halfway up before it reaches the Auric difficulty. If Havoc was really part of a long term plan, why have Auric and Maelstrom, and why take so long to get Havoc out? Relative to competing titles, this doesn’t feel terribly coherent.
Hrm, the part finder part to me just reinforces the feeling, a largely unasked for and painfully underutilized feature being hamfisted into the new game mode (that also wasn’t anywhere near the top of community desires) doesn’t scream well thought out coherent plan to me.
Making some minor adjustments to the ladder doesn’t take a significant amount of dev time, and the adjustments feel as hestitant and resistant as the crafting changes until Unlocked and Loaded did.
Some voice lines and lobby entrance are not the kind of thing that takes significant numbers of dev sprints to build. The levels are largely based on assets from existing missions. Yes, in the most technical pedantic sense, there’s new code and testing was required, but that doesn’t mean it was a significant dev effort that delivered substantial new content, nor does it mean it feels like anything but a tacked on afterthought. Particularly when the “new” lore is largely disconnected RNG voice snippets that don’t substantially advance the story, a story that’s largely been stuck in limbo and incoherently communicated for a couple years now.
The only reason I think it’s not replacing Auric is to retain Auric for the people who like it as it is (of which there are plenty).
And perks and UI and penances and the levels (including spawning logic, waves, etc etc). It sounds like you’ve worked in software. If that’s the case, I’d imagine you also understand that delivering anything takes longer than anyone unfamiliar with building software will be likely to recognize or appreciate.
I dont want a game mode with 30 plague ogryns Clogging up the mission board and the events are very obviously geared towards new players or casuals with less resources and not hardcore players. I will never ever care about event rewards i only care about content and new weapons cuz outside of those drops this game is boring and ran its course really. I still think its hilarious last update we got basically nothing new and were still waiting for content but hey thats fatshark for you. I dont even really care about new modifiers or game modes cuz fatshark has already proven theyre incapable of making fun and engaging modifiers or game modes anyway. I like the regular mission board but unless were getting a new map which we still dont have or new weapons i really dont care. I think its hilarious last 3 maps we got were awful long range samey carnival maps outside of gloriana but i rarely ever play that map. Like can we get a medium sized map or a map thats not just constant long sight lines and range spam already I mean how long has it been at this point? They will forever take too long to release content but eventually borderlands 4 will release and i can finally stop
Playing darktide cuz its not like we ever have anything new to do anyway. You can vanish from darktide for like 5 months at a time and barely anything’s changed.
That’s the problem I have with the situation from a mentality perspective.
People stopped playing. Players who aren’t playing aren’t going to be shopping at the cosmetics store at all. Low traffic equals low sales right? The situation is perplexing as the solution has been hammered when it comes to player feedback. To the point where someone got so fed up they karking catalogued it. Props to Rag.